The Washington Post
August 21, 1996
Robyn Hitchcock's Eccentric Elixir
by Mark Jenkins
Like many successful rockers, Robyn Hitchcock apparently feels imprisoned by his best-known songs. Except that Hitchcock is not a successful rocker. He is a cult figure who has opted out of embracing a larger audience so often that major labels are understandably wary of him.
Nonetheless, Warner Bros. has signed Hitchcock and released Moss Elixir, his first full-blown Rock album since 1993's Respect. Except that Elixir is not a full-blown Rock album. It is a pointedly eccentric and personal collection that frequently sidesteps the neo-Byrdsian style of such Hitchcock college-radio hits as "Balloon Man" and "So You Think You're In Love".
This is not unprecedented. After briefly retiring in 1983 following Groovy Decay -- an album he deemed overproduced -- Hitchcock returned with the spare, Folk-ish I Often Dream of Trains. He has since released two more low-sheen albums -- Eye and You & Oblivion -- and complained that Respect came out sounding much more lush than he'd intended. Elixir is not the English singer-songwriter's starkest effort, but it is less ornate than its predecessor.
Despite Hitchcock's quest for a less-commercial sound, Elixir is not rashly dissimilar to his previous work. The album's first single, "Alright, Yeah", is a tuneful rocker with a chiming guitar riff that (not for the first time in a Hitchcock song) is almost lifted from the Byrds' "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better". Several of the other songs feature a full band, and Hitchcock plays electric guitar more often than acoustic. The most sonically extravagant track, "Beautiful Queen", is a virtual digest of Beatles studio inventions from 1966 to '67, including backward-played tapes from "Tomorrow Never Knows" and a horn flourish from "Penny Lane".
The performer is unaccompanied on three of these 12 songs, while five others feature only Hitchcock and a single other musician, most often violinist Deni Bonet. This unadorned approach suits the melancholy feel of songs like "Man With A Woman's Shadow" and "I Am Not Me". As usual, Hitchcock's absurdist lyrics can be merely playful, but his obsession with mortality proves unusually resonant in "The Speed Of Things" and "You And Oblivion". The former contemplates life's ephemerality; the latter turns specifically to the death of Hitchcock's father, the dominant theme of Respect.
Ultimately, it is the music that best conveys the songwriter's unease. Discordant guitar parts and unexpected, ghostly harmonies underlie such songs as "Filthy Bird" and "The Speed Of Things". As a lyricist, Hitchcock still tends toward the glib, but on Elixir his guitar provides a rich blend of sweet melody and astringent counterpoint.
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